Bilateral Hip Resurfacing patient - Linda Pugliese holds a 6th degree Black Belt under the Ko-Sutemi Seiei Kan Dojo, and has won 5 NBL World Championships between 1993 and 1997. Her last competition before Hip Resurfacing was in 2002, but the hip pain was too intolerable for her to compete anymore.

"Since Hip Resurfacing surgery, I am able to do all that I did before the osteoarthritis and am elated to have my life back!" - Linda Pugliese, Bilateral Hip Resurfacing 2006

I have been training in Karate for 32 years and teaching for 20. Even when both of my hips failed me, I continued teaching karate by using my best students as examples, until after my hip resurfacing surgery. Since my hip resurfacing surgery, my school continues to operate and I have even competed in forms and sparring.....

Hip Resurfacing, Alternative to Total Hip Replacement, Returning patients to an ACTIVE life

4 June 2015

Voluntary actions initiated to remove smaller size components and change
Instructions for Use (IFU) following analysis of recent performance data

No action required from patients; no change to current practice for patient
follow-up care

BHR continues to perform amongst the best hip replacements for the right
patients

Smith & Nephew (LSE: SN; NYSE: SNN), the global medical technology business,
announces the voluntary removal from the market of 46mm diameter and smaller femoral
heads and corresponding acetabular cup components for the
BIRMINGHAM HIP◊ Resurfacing
(BHR) System, and new Instructions for Use (IFU), reflecting recent performance
data. Surgeons should maintain their routine follow-up protocol for patients, and
patients are not required to take any new action.

Andy Weymann MD, Smith & Nephew's Chief Medical Officer, said: "Patient welfare
is Smith & Nephew's top priority. Based on our analysis of our most recent data,
we are taking the necessary steps to ensure that the BHR is only used in those patient
groups where it has demonstrated strong performance. These represent the vast majority
of current patients."

“ ...I was checking off my shopping list as I slowly pushed my grocery cart, slightly leaning against it, trying so hard to hide the limp that had now become so apparent. Suddenly I realized there was an item I had missed. Oh NO! It was two aisles over, an aisle that I already had walked past. I paused, leaning more against my cart, hoping to take some of the weight and pain away from my deteriorating left hip. I thought long and hard, do I really need that item? Can I do without it? Was it worth walking back TWO long painful aisles to get to that item? I decided no, it was not worth it, even though I really wanted that item, the cost of that item now equated to the amount of pain it would take to obtain it. The thought of that excruciating hip pain brought tears to my eyes, tears that I slowly and secretly wiped away... Vicky”

If the words above hit home, you have come to the right place. Welcome to the Surface Hippy Hip Resurfacing Site, an Alternative to Total Hip Replacement! We are Surface Hippies (Hip Resurfacing patients), we all share a common story. First of all, this site was developed NOT to make money, but to pay it forward. There are no conflict of interests at all and there are no companies that have any say in the content, it is all about the patients and most of the info is from top hip surgeons from around the world. I keep it current and always welcome feedback. If you have had hip resurfacing surgery, please feel free to share your story on here, good or bad. Just
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. The above was mine, (meet Vicky Marlow , founder of this website). I went from a very active female WAY too young to become totally disabled, unable to walk without a cane. I mean after all, a Total Hip Replacement was designed for someone in their 70's, I was only in my 40's! But, I am now pain free, after my Hip Resurfacing on December 1, 2005 (prior to FDA approval) under the skilled hands of the world renowned surgeon, Dr. Vijay Bose in India.

Welcome to your Surface Hippy/Hip Resurfacing site, the Alternative to Total Hip Replacement and your new family. Read this page carefully, and bookmark it, this site is filled with a ton of information that will be crucial through your journey to find answers. It is updated with new info almost daily. To meet fellow Surface Hippies (Hip Resurfacing patients), join the Surface Hippy Hip Resurfacing Message board & Survey Group

The fastest growing online hip resurfacing site support group on the internet.

Also, for existing patients please take the survey/poll that I started on July 5, 2010, click on this link , then on the upper right you will see Join This Group!, click on that and sign up. I believe you might need to have a yahoo or gmail email account, so you can sign up for one for free and have it forward the posts to your email account or keep it seperate since at times we get a lot of posts and they can become overwhelming. Or sign up for the Daily Digest to receive just one email a day with all of the posts for the day. Or in the beginning, I just signed up and bookmarked the webpage and read all the posts on the actual website, once you read a post, the color of it changes so when you go back, you know where you left off. For the polls again go to the left of the website then click on polls to participate in this survey. I just started the siteto keep this ongoing survey/poll on there and now it has turned into the fastest growing hip resurfacing support group and message board. Please join and feel free to post messages there, you are more than welcome to. My other hip also started deteriorating over a year ago and I had my right hip resurfaced just in December of 2010, I have now joined the ranks of the bilaterals. If you have had surgery already, please click on the link and participate in the survey and if you would like to just meet fellow Surface Hippies or soon to be Surface Hippies, join and feel free to post questions, information, or if you want to just give words of encouragement or need words of encouragement please join in the discussions. We all need some support as we go through this and what better support than from someone that has been through it already. There are many wonderful Surface Hippies/Hip Resurfacing patients out there, ready and willing to help you along your journey...and NO one I mean NO one understands what we are going through because we tend to look normal, we just limp and they do not understand why or how painful it can be. We all understand, we have either been there or some are there still now doing their research like I did 7 years ago.

The Surface Hippy Hip Resurfacing Site Message board consists of Hip Resurfacing patients past and present all there to support each other from pre surgery to post op. And I monitor the group on a regular basis and read every single post, so I will be there for you too.

Also keep in mind that on the upper right side of every page there is a Search function, so if you want to search for a specific topic you can enter that there to find the articles related to it. On the support group there is also a search function that you can enter a word under search to find archived posts that may be helpful to you. This site is growing all the time and the amount of information can be hard to sift through, or you can also
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personally, just click on the email me, anytime and ask and I can point you to where the information is. EXTREMELY important is the fact that you need to know that all of the top hip resurfacing surgeons also have performed a ton of Total Hip Replacements, but the majority of Total Hip Replacement surgeons do NOT do hip resurfacing, so the only way you will get a true unbiased opinion is to see a surgeon that does a lot of both procedures, Total Hip Replacement and Hip Resurfacing. I can also help you with that. I am so happy you found our site. Welcome!

Purpose of This Site

This Surface Hippy/Hip Resurfacing Site was created by a Surface Hippy (a fellow patient) and is here for the global community of Surface Hippies (Hip Resurfacing patients and those looking into hip surgery) or Alternatives to Total Hip Replacement to collect and share: a comprehensive knowledgebase on Hip Resurfacing; scientific and anecdotal statistics; and personal Hip Resurfacing stories to help people return to happy and productive lives, and to pay it forward to future generations. You will see many Hip Resurfacing patient videos throughout the Hip Stories section showing a full return to active lives including surfing, martial arts, tennis-handball-squash-racquetball, skiing, dancing, yoga, marathon and even Ironman and Ultraman triathlons. You will also find over 20 video interviews with some of the world's top Orthpopedic surgeons so that you as a patient can conduct a virtual interview.

The re-emergence of Hip Resurfacing as a viable option worldwide is largely due to patient-driven demand. Active patients that demand an Alternative option to a Total Hip Replacement. To ensure the long-term success of Hip Resurfacing, patients must educate and empower themselves to make the right decisions about the surgeons and procedures they choose. Do not believe everything you read in the press, most of it is drama, and meant to sell papers, not facts, because most of those articles leave out very important facts. I can help guide you so that you can make your own right decision in this process.

Patients need to know what questions to ask to find the right surgeon for Hip Resurfacing, as well as to send a message to the doctors who aren’t current with the most successful techniques.

Complicated cases require the very best surgeons, and there is quite a range in skill and experience. Again, Surgeons that perform Total Hip Replacements do not always perform Hip Resurfacings, but all the surgeons that do Hip Resurfacing also do Total Hip Replacements. You need the most accurate information you can get, because your quality of life depends on it. And nobody cares about your quality of life as much as you do. Find out if Hip Resurfacing, an alternative to Total Hip Replacement, is the right solution for you, as it is for many young - or young-at-heart patients. Welcome!

Why Hip Resurfacing?

Hip Resurfacing is a bone preserving procedure that is a more conservative approach to hip surgery than the conventional Total Hip Replacement (THR). It gets rid of your hip pain but allows you to return to a full active lifestyle with no limitations.

Short Video Showing the differences between Total Hip Replacement and Hip Resurfacing

Hip Resurfacing, Alternative to Total Hip Replacement

With Hip Resurfacing, they just shave off a little from the top of your femur and place a metal cap on it instead of cutting off the femoral head with a power saw the way they do with a Total Hip Replacement. On the hip socket side or acetabulum, they place a metal cup which is the same for both Total Hip Replacement and Hip Resurfacing. Here is a link that shows the difference in loss of bone between a Total Hip Replacement and a Hip Resurfacing.

Selecting The Right Surgeon For Hip Resurfacing

The first step in finding out if Hip Resurfacing is right for you or whether or not you qualify for Hip Resurfacing, is selecting the right surgeon. Again, it is imperative you know that not all hip surgeons perform Hip Resurfacings. In fact, most Orthopedic surgeons out there that do Total Hip Replacements (THR's) actually do not even do Hip Resurfacing, so they can not give you a true unbiased opinion. But ALL Hip Resurfacing surgeons also perform Total Hip Replacements. I believe the average number of hip surgeries an Orthopedic surgeon does in one year is only 20. Many of the surgeons that do Hip Resurfacing do at least 20 surgeries a month, some do 20 surgeries on a weekly basis, not just 20 in one whole year. They say practice makes perfect, you do not want to go to a surgeon that has to dust off the cob webs from his scalpel. Another fact is that the majority of top hip resurfacing surgeons have done more Total Hip Replacements than Hip Resurfacing because THR's have been around longer and still not everyone is a candidate for Hip Resurfacing. They are the true pros at hip surgery because they do a lot of them and they do them on a regular basis and they are cutting edge with the latest advancements.

The only way you will get an un-biased valid opinion on whether or not you are a candidate for Hip Resurfacing, is if you get opinions from some of the top Hip Resurfacing surgeons in the world, ones that perform both procedures and can really tell you what the best option is for you. If you find yourself being told by your surgeon that you do not qualify for Hip Resurfacing, do NOT give up, or even if several surgeons tell you that a Total Hip Replacement is the only way to go, first ask them how many hip resurfacings they themselves have done, more than likely it will be less than 100 or none at all. Then contact me, I can help you get opinions for free from some of the very best in the world via email, so you don't even have to leave your home except to get your recent x-rays. Once you find out if you are a candidate, then you can begin the process of deciding which surgeon to go to for your Hip Resurfacing surgery and start your journey back to enjoying all the activities you ever dreamed of. Do not give up and do not buy into all of the hype about metal on metal implants. Read this section and watch the video interviews with six of the world's top Orthopedic surgeon's that all address the recent press Addressing the Concerns about Metal on Metal implants . Between these six top surgeons, they had at the time of the interviews, performed over 27,000 total hip surgeries and over 13,000 Hip Resurfacings, that is between only SIX surgeons!

Selecting the right surgeon is crucial to getting long term positive results after any hip surgery but especially for Hip Resurfacing. It is a personal decision but one that must be taken very seriously. Basically, if you choose the wrong surgeon and the surgery does not go as planned, you can not get a “do over” without risking a revision surgery to a Total Hip Replacement, which in turn means another major surgery.

Hip Resurfacing Educational Foundation Inc., a 501c3 non profit helps to educate the patient community on this great procedure.

Your donations will help to pay it forward to future patients seeking solutions to hip pain. All donations are tax deductible. To donate, please
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.

Additional Copyright: Some information on this website comes from the public domain. You are encouraged to download and reproduce information on this website for personal, non-commercial use. The information contained within these pages is the property of Vicky Marlow, and I retain all rights regarding its content. Any use of the material for commercial purposes is a violation of copyright.

Stories and articles on this site are for informational purposes only and are not a substitute for advice from your personal physician or surgeon.

Unless otherwise noted, articles and stories on this site are written by patients not medical experts.Surface Hippy Info is not financially controlled by or affiliated with any device manufacturers, surgeons or medical centers performing this procedure.

Vicky Marlow is a patient advocate and is not medically trained, her comments on this web site are provided for informational purposes only and are not a substitute for advice from your personal physician or surgeon.

Privacy ÃÆÃÂ Aside from counting visitors, Surface Hippy Info does not share email addresses or any personal information with any group or organization.